Seed Distributions for March Madness: A Tool for Bracketologists

Why Pick Favorites?

There is a reason why teams are assigned good seeds: they are good teams. That being said, upsets occur unpredictably, but with regularity. Since 1985, the Pick Favorite strategy of always picking the better seed results in a Final Four of four No. 1 seeds. There are then at most eight ways in which the Final Four and National Championship play out. Using the ESPN scoring system, which gives a score of 1920 for a perfect bracket, the following table gives the possible Pick Favorite bracket scores. Using the Pick Favorite strategy typically provides a reasonable bracket. In some years, it has produced a very good bracket. If you want to avoid being at the bottom of your bracket pool, use Pick Favorite to create your bracket.

The following table gives the number of correct Pick Favorite games in the Round of 64, the Round of 32, the Sweet Sixteen, and the Elite Eight. Using the ESPN scoring system, which gives a score of 1280 for a perfect bracket in these four rounds, the following table also gives the possible scores.